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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660722">ruffle my feathers, rattle my bones</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apsacta/pseuds/Apsacta'>Apsacta</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Twosetviolin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Absence, Body Horror, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Nightmares, Not A Happy Ending, Weird imagery, weird but not like the other weird ones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:01:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,911</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660722</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apsacta/pseuds/Apsacta</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yes,” he answers when Eddy says “You’ll leave me.”</p><p>“Why?” Eddy asks.</p><p>“Because that’s what people do,” he says.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddy Chen/Brett Yang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ruffle my feathers, rattle my bones</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello, please read tags, thank you.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <em> *  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Why?” Eddy asks. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Because it’s what people do,” he says. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> *  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>It starts when they end, when the sun sets orange over the horizon and the bats come out.</p><p>Even at night, the heat refuses to die out that summer. It’s heavy and dull, and it presses down chests and sticks to skin, and when they cut down the old pine tree on the square, it becomes inescapable.</p><p>Eddy can’t sleep. It pushes down on his ribcage, hazy and close, and clings to his eyelashes. He stares at the ceiling, and he waits.</p><p>It’s as if no one else is sleeping on days like this. His parents, speaking softly on the other side of the hallway, and his sister, pacing in her room. Eddy hears everything. He hears the dogs getting restless in the streets, soft thumping of paws against the pavement, and the wind coming up, rustling through the leaves and tapping at the windows, and the voices outside, whispers of hurried conversations down the street and on the square.</p><p>There’s nothing else to do so he waits, with his heart in his throat.</p><p>There are fingerprints that aren’t his on the inside of his eyelids, and the taste of their owner inside his mouth still, and he waits, thoughts racing and pulse beating.</p><p>It feels like no one is sleeping, and Eddy hears everything, save for the sound of his own breathing. It’s easier to think about him in the dark, and so it’s what he does. With his eyes closed, and his fingers stuffed inside his mouth to choke down a sob. He’d pull his vocal chords out so he won’t make a sound.</p><p>He’s still thinking of him when he falls asleep. </p><p>
  <em> * </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He’s everything in the way that the sun is everything, and the air is everything, and Eddy could never live without air or without light or without him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He’s the stray dogs in the streets, and the shade of the old pine trees, and the walls of a town that Eddy won’t ever leave. He’s the heat of a summer that sticks to his skin, and the leaves on the trees in the spring, and the dark sky in winter. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> * </em>
</p><p>At night, Eddy sometimes dreams he’s a crow.</p><p>Feathers shining tar-like in the dark and ruffling with the wind, beak sharp enough to cut through skin.</p><p>At night, Eddy sometimes dreams he’s a crow, and he picks up shiny metal from an old instrument case, shimmering gold and silvers against faded velvet, heavy with the weight of regret. He picks them one by one, tingling and clinking, and then he stuffs them inside his chest for safekeeping.</p><p>They rattle against his lungs and chink against his ribcage, and he feels them press onto his heart.</p><p>He’s waiting for the moment he can give them back. Payment.</p><p>At night, Eddy sometimes dreams he’s a crow, and when he wakes up, his fingers still feel like claws.</p><p>It rattles and it clinks in his ears still, but everything is quiet outside, and everything is quiet inside. Barely a breeze. Not even the sound of his own breathing.</p><p>Everyone else is asleep, and so Eddy waits.</p><p>He fears everybody knows.</p><p>
  <em> * </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He plays the violin, like Eddy, who’s played since he was six and has now met someone his age who’s better than him. He plays Sarasate and Wienawsky, like Eddy’s never heard them played before, and Eddy feels small and envious and jealous. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He plays music on the streets sometimes, for fun, and he starts by taking Eddy’s money, shiny coins dumped onto the velvet of an old violin case, and then he takes everything else. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He plays the violin, and Eddy’s always known that he was going to be a musician, and that he was going to be great at it. He’s better than Eddy by a mile, but he doesn’t hold it against him. He says ‘play with me, next time’, and ‘follow me’, and ‘it was fun’, and ‘take your time’ when Eddy can’t follow. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He plays Tchaikovsky, and Massenet, and Vieuxtemps, and Kreisler. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He plays for Eddy and everyone knows. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>There’s a heat that doesn’t die out, that summer, and Eddy’s lonely. There’s nothing much to do, on days like these, apart from watching the people and the dogs outside, and he doesn’t want to do that, so he gets his violin.</p><p>He’s almost tempted to play outside, but it hurts just to think about the heat, the people, the looks, the fact that they know, probably. It hurts to think about playing alone, too, but there’s no remedy to that. Inside or out, it won’t make a difference.</p><p>He hasn’t touched his instrument in weeks, and his fingers feel tender with the lack of practice. It’s bad, when it hurts to play like this, bad that he couldn’t keep up the habit, bad that he’s afraid his fingers will bleed if he tries to get to the end of the piece.</p><p>He’s tired, from lack of sleep, from troubled sleep, from the looks on the streets and the whispers in the house, and it’s hard enough to remember the notes. He’s saved only by muscle memory, by his fingers unconsciously finding the right spot on the fingerboard and his arm remembering movements.</p><p>If Eddy had gone on to study music, the Sibelius violin concerto would have been his go-to piece, his signature concerto. There has always been a dreamy quality to its melancholy, powerful as it felt, but now he can’t help but hear something inherently tragic to the coldness seeping through the notes. The piece speaks in a different voice.</p><p>He didn’t study music, though, and so it’s just a piece that he can only half remember, and it hurts his fingers and his ribs to play it.</p><p>The heat doesn’t die out that summer, and even Sibelius’ violin concerto doesn’t cool the atmosphere. </p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> “Yes,” he answers when Eddy says “You’ll leave me.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Why?” Eddy asks. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Because that’s what people do,” he says. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>There’s a cockroach in the kitchen when Eddy goes for a glass of water after his practice session, and if that’s not punishment for the way he fucked up the piece, then Eddy doesn’t know what it is.</p><p>Maybe Eddy’s tired, but it looks like it’s staring at him, with its beady eyes and its ugly wings and its antennae long enough to reach Eddy’s toes. He leaves without his water. He’s always been a coward. </p><p>He dreams about the cockroach that night. It crawls under the door, and Eddy can hear the ticking it makes as it scuttles across the floorboard, like a metronome gone crazy. It’s inching closer quickly, and Eddy’s heartbeat aligns with the sounds its legs make. Then, there’s no sound, all quiet, not even the wind outside, and the cockroach is either on the bed, perhaps even on Eddy already, or…</p><p>Eddy’s a crow again, and he’s picking at something warm and soft. It comes off easy, and it tastes of...</p><p>He wakes up with an uncomfortable feeling in his chest, and a weird taste in the back of his mouth. His thoughts are spinning again. </p><p>He left because of Eddy, probably.  </p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> He pets stray dogs in the streets and gives them water in his cupped hands in the summer. He names every single one of them, and knows them better than anyone, and Eddy wonders if he’s a stray dog too. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He watches people live and dissects their existences, knows who’s arguing with their neighbours, and who’s having an affair, and who’s born and who’s died, and Eddy wonders if he’s just another piece in the puzzle. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He sits with Eddy in the summer heat, and watches lizards on the walls, and cats on the roofs, and forgets what he’s saying when he gets distracted, and Eddy wonders if he’s going to be forgotten, too. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He’s polite and nice to others, but with Eddy he’s blunt and crude, and he teases and laughs and makes him blush more than Eddy likes. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He loves music more than anything else, and maybe Eddy a little bit too. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He kisses Eddy all the time, and tells him to stop caring, and to stop being scared, and one day he says, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I’m leaving.” </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>The days melt together into a blur of heat and stickiness. </p><p>It’s music, in the mornings, when he can. Eddy doesn’t always have the time, but he tries to. Out of frustration, mostly. To get back, at himself, for letting go. It hurts. Sibelius sounds wrong, ice cold, and any other piece ends up dissonant, the cause of his dissatisfaction, probably. They say that practice makes perfect, but in his case, it doesn’t seem to be true. If anything, the more he works on it, the faster the notes seem to evade from his memory. It’s more annoying than relaxing, but Eddy’s stubborn. He’ll continue even if it only gets worse. </p><p>He shouldn’t, probably. He should take a break, at least. He doesn’t. </p><p>Music gets worse and he doesn’t understand it. It shouldn’t be like this. It never was, before. </p><p>In the afternoons, he’s restless. </p><p>Eddy lingers around, anxious and troubled. He tells himself that it’s because he’s tired. The lack of sleep, still. Those goddamn nightmares that seep into his brain. Even his parents start to question why he never goes outside anymore. <em> It’s not like you </em>, they say. But Eddy’s not sure that it was ever like him, to be honest, but he doesn’t say that. He’s never been the confrontational type. </p><p>He’s kicked out, eventually, under the pretence that they need him to do some shopping. </p><p>It’s uneasy to go out, too warm, too weird, places from before, different somehow now that he’s alone. People are looking, as if they know. It’s probably not true. But it still feels like it. </p><p>On the square, the dogs are restless too. No shade, not now that the trees are gone. They’re uncomfortable and they look in pain. Eddy would like to do something to help. A bit of water, maybe. Like he used to. </p><p>He does something wrong, probably. It’s all on him. He’s not delicate enough, perhaps. Too rough, too fast, too… something. </p><p>The dog watches him come with apprehension, tenses up when Eddy extends his hand. Eddy tries to smile, tries to shush him in a reassuring way. <em> Let me </em> , he says, <em> let me help. </em> </p><p>The dog bites.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> “Tell them,” he says when he pushes Eddy down to come over him and bite at his throat, when the door is open and anyone could see, when Eddy’s mother is in the room directly under them and Eddy’s father is just down the street, when the windows are open and the air carries the sound. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Tell them,” he says, “say it, say you love me, you love me and you’ll be mine.” </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>It bleeds for a while and his mother smacks his head as she sanitizes the wound. <em> Blame yourself </em>, Eddy thinks. </p><p>“Always so damn stupid,” his mother says, “be careful. How will you work, how will you...” </p><p><em> How will I play, </em>Eddy thinks. He doesn’t say it though. It would be foolish. Playing is only a hobby and it doesn’t mean anything anymore. What’s there to say? </p><p>She sends him to his room, like Eddy’s only five years old. He feels stupid, and small, and useless. It prickles and stings at the wound, sharp jabs starting in his palm, up his arm. It hurts. Can’t complain, though. He brought it all upon himself. </p><p>Eddy can’t fall asleep. </p><p>It’s all for the better, anyway. If he falls asleep he’ll dream again. </p><p>He thinks Sibelius violin concerto to distract himself from the pain, closes his eyes. The notes come slowly, he can almost hear them, trickling down. Too slow, somehow. Practice with a metronome, he’d say, but practice is hard and Eddy can’t. He’s learned the piece by heart but some of the memories seem to have left him. His left hand… It bites, little electric shocks up to his elbow. Stings. Like something’s picking at it. </p><p>He should practice with a metronome, but it’s broken, the way it ticks lacking any kind of regularity. It sounds more like tiny legs scuttling across the floor than anything else. He can’t see what it is. </p><p>There’s a crow at the window. </p><p>Eddy wakes up. </p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> He doesn’t care but Eddy does because he’s promised things. To be good, and to do well, and to continue the line as it’s traced, and Eddy can’t go back, but he doesn’t know, doesn’t understand what promises mean. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>He can’t play for days and it’s lonely. Music is the only thing that Eddy’s got left that isn’t memories. </p><p>It’s for the best, maybe, that he can focus on everything else, the way he needs to. He’ll do well, then, like he promised. </p><p>It’s strange, though, being by himself. Eddy’s not used to it. He’s spent so many years with a constant presence just by his side, with eyes following from across the room, with fingers digging into his skin. He tells himself that it’s fine. He gets more done that way. Makes everyone proud. But it’s weird, and he tells his brain that it’s fine, but his body disagrees. </p><p>The bite starts itching after a few days, like little prickles moving under Eddy’s skin. </p><p>“It’s good,” his mother says. “It’s healing.”</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> “We can’t do this,” Eddy says. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Why?” he asks. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>Eddy wakes up with a start, from footsteps too loud around the room. </p><p>He keeps his eyes closed and his lips pressed together. If he doesn’t move... Someone’s walking around the bed, and there’s a weight on Eddy’s chest. </p><p>The bed dips down. </p><p>
  <em> I’ll come back, I promise.  </em>
</p><p>Eddy opens his eyes and there’s nothing. </p><p>Something’s itching under his skin. </p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> He’s a tease and Eddy’s helpless, clay under his fingers, moulded into pretty things or compacted into formless shapes at his will. He makes a game of it, how his fingers creep up Eddy’s thigh under the table when they eat, how he looks at him from across the room, something in his eyes, not even hidden, how he plays for Eddy and not with him, and how everyone can tell. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Tell them,” he says, “I don’t care.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He pushes Eddy around corners and presses him into walls and kisses him with one hand on his chest and the other on his face, and he takes and he takes, and he laughs when Eddy’s scared that everyone will know, the way they look, eyes on them and whispers and knowing smirks. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Tell them,” he says, “I don’t care.” </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>Eddy forgets things more than he should. Music, his keys, people’s birthdays, and what he’s had for breakfast the day before. He’s always been like that, scatter-brained, and it used to make him laugh. </p><p>It’s less funny, though, when it’s things that matter, <em> actually </em>matter. It’s less funny, when it’s the feel of a hand, or the weight of a piece, or the sound of a laugh, fingers at his thigh and against his neck and everywhere they’re not supposed to be, eyes, mouth, smiles. </p><p>It happens at night. </p><p>It happens at night, because Eddy thinks about it before he falls asleep. He tries not to, but it’s too tempting. He can’t afford it when everyone’s watching, but when he’s alone in the darkness, there’s nothing to stop him. So he thinks about it, and thinks about it, but when he wakes up the next morning the thought is gone. </p><p>So, it happens at night.</p><p>That’s why he can’t scream, when the tiny legs creep on his hand and tickle his skin, ticking crazy metronome, tick and tick and tick, up and up his arm and down his chest. </p><p>If he opens his mouth, more memories will fly out. </p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> He closes his eyes when he kisses Eddy, all the time, dragged in corners and pressed against walls, just out of sight, with the adrenaline of people nearby coursing through their veins, and the buzz of being almost found out in whispered conversations. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He closes his eyes when he kisses Eddy, fluttering eyelashes behind glasses, but Eddy doesn’t, eyes filled with him, with wanting to commit every detail of his face to memory. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Stop staring,” he says, “it’s creepy.” </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>The dogs on the square caught a bird. </p><p>There’s black feathers, shiny, all over the ground, something sticky clinging to them. </p><p>Eddy doesn’t notice it at first. He’s too distracted, trying to avoid people. He doesn’t want to be looked at. </p><p>Something cracks under his feet. </p><p>He jumps and screams. </p><p>People stare. </p><p>His arm itches.  </p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> It seems like everything in the house is coming alive, noises in every room. There’s a door creaking upstairs and Eddy’s sister is coming out of her room, and down the stairs, step by step. His mother moves in the kitchen, a shuffle, and a commotion, and a hand on the handle of the door already, and his father is coming home, keys in the lock, and shoes at the door, and coughing in the entrance. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “We can’t do this,” Eddy says. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Why?” he asks. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>Sometimes, at night, Eddy dreams he’s a crow. </p><p>He picks up coins from an instrument case. It’s good payment for food, so he stuffs them inside his chest. It’ll feel heavy when he wakes, rattle against his lungs and chink against his ribcage, he’ll feel them press onto his heart. But it’s good payment for food. </p><p>It’s soft and warm, comes off easy when he picks at it. It tastes of regrets and memories. It’s sweet and warm, and it trickles down between his fingertips when he tears at it. </p><p>There’s a cockroach in the room as well, under the bed, then up the wall, and it’s good food, too. Save it for later, when he’s done with the hand. Take your time. He’s learned it well. </p><p>The cockroach scurries up to the ceiling, and Eddy watches. He doesn’t get to eat it. There’s a door opening somewhere. </p><p>He stops and listens. No more coins, no more food, no more tiny legs ticking on the wall. </p><p>There’s someone else in Eddy’s room. </p><p>The crow flies away. </p><p>The bed dips. </p><p>
  <em> Tell them.  </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> “You need to take your time,” he tells Eddy when he’s rushing on the violin. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You need to take your time,” he tells Eddy when Eddy’s failing to learn a new piece. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You need to take your time,” he tells Eddy when he kisses him, a flutter so light that Eddy barely feels it, bottom lip catching between Eddy’s, slow and soft. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>“Who left the front door open last night?” Eddy’s mother asks, and he looks up, startled. </p><p>“Dad, probably,” his sister says with a shrug.  </p><p>*</p><p><em> “What do you want?” he asks. </em> <em> “What are you looking at?” </em></p><p>
  <em> He catches Eddy every time, and teases him with a smile, smug and proud, and Eddy gasps like a fish out of water. </em>
</p><p><em> He smiles at others and looks at Eddy from the corner of his eye, questions him silently. </em> ‘What are you watching?’ <em> and </em> ‘why are you watching?’ <em> , and Eddy doesn’t know, looks away ashamed, but he won’t let him get away with it, won’t grant him that little bit of peace. </em></p><p>
  <em> “You’re always so scared,” he corners Eddy one day, when his mother is in the other room and Eddy’s heart feels like a flutter in his chest, but he insists, smiles when he shakes his head. “Jealous,” he whispers against Eddy’s ear. “Admit it.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He chuckles when Eddy presses their lips together, harsh. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Not like that.” </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>There’s a heat that refuses to die out, that summer. Even at night. It’s just as good, because Eddy can’t sleep anyway. </p><p>If he closes his eyes, he dreams that his memories leave out of his mouth. They float up like music notes, pop like bubbles. He’s afraid his soul will follow, drift up to the ceiling and disappear. </p><p>If he closes his eyes, there’s cockroaches in his bed, one and then two and then three, and they go down his legs and tickle his feet. </p><p>If he closes his eyes, there’s a crow and it eats...</p><p>There’s a heat that refuses to die out, that summer, even at night. It’s just as good, because Eddy would rather stay awake, eyes closed on pretty fingers and teasing smiles, ears full of fake promises. </p><p>
  <em> I’ll come back, I promise.  </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> When summer ends they play outside again, together. But it’s different, and when Eddy looks to his side, he looks away, and they mess up their duets, and Eddy can tell that he is disappointed even though he doesn’t say anything. </em>
</p><p><em> He says </em> ‘it’s fine’ <em> , and </em> ‘it was fun’ <em> , and Eddy can hear that he doesn’t mean it, and it hurts. He cringes at Eddy’s posture when they’re playing alone in the living room, and touches the pads of Eddy’s fingers, and he tells Eddy that he’s just checking if he’s still practicing. </em></p><p>
  <em> Eddy watches him all the time to see if university changes him, to see if he stops petting the dogs in the street, or if he plays Sarasate differently, if he ceases to guess at people’s lives, or smiles differently at pretty girls, or doesn’t whisper inappropriate jokes in Eddy’s ear in public, but he doesn’t do anything different. He doesn’t change, and Eddy yearns for something, and he doesn’t know what. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>There is a crow, feathers shining tar-like in the light and ruffling in the wind, and beak sharp enough to cut through skin. It taps at the window when Eddy touches his violin for the first time in days. </p><p>Sibelius dies after the first few notes, and Eddy stumbles back, away from the window, away from the tapping, away from…</p><p>“Hey, careful!” </p><p>His sister grabs him by the shoulders, rough, spins him around before he backs into her. </p><p>“Watch what you’re doing, Eddy,” she frowns, “you’re all over the place. What’s going on?” </p><p>Eddy shakes his head, bites his lips. “Nothing.” A flash of dark at the window. He looks away. “Sorry, I was…” he looks at the window, sees nothing. “Sorry, I was distracted.” </p><p>His sister sighs, and puts her hand on his shoulder. </p><p>“Something’s wrong.” </p><p>It’s not even a question. </p><p>There’s a weight in Eddy’s chest, something that presses onto his heart, rattles against his lungs and chinks against his ribcage. </p><p>“It’s fine,” he mutters. All of it, he thinks. Petting stray dogs, and whispering crude jokes, and smiling at pretty girls, and playing Sarasate better than Eddy ever will. </p><p>“It’s fine,” Eddy repeats, “nothing’s wrong.” </p><p>“Do you regret not playing more?” she asks, looking at the violin in his hands. </p><p>“No. Yes. I don’t know. Sorry, there was a crow, no?” </p><p>“I didn’t see. Stop scratching at your hand, you’ll make it bleed.”  </p><p>*</p><p><em> He goes on to study music and Eddy could easily have predicted it from the start, from the moment that they met, when he played Sarasate and Eddy found himself stupid and small and jealous. He tells Eddy to do the same, </em> ‘come with me, come on’ <em> , and he doesn’t understand when Eddy says that he’s promised his parents to get a good job and make money. </em></p><p>
  <em> He laughs at Eddy’s hands when they get restless without anything to hold, and he pats him on the head, and tells him that it’s fine, that he’s a good kid, but he smiles at Eddy the way he smiles at others sometimes, at girls handing him his money back in shops and at waiters bringing him his drink at the bar, on the corner of the street, just across the marketplace, and Eddy goes to bed and he can’t sleep. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>The door downstairs creaks open at night and no one hears, there are steps, light and airy, up the stairs, and no one notices. </p><p>No one but Eddy. </p><p>He’s half awake and he can’t move. There’s a weight in his chest that presses onto his heart, rattles against his lungs and chinks against his ribcage, and pushes him into the mattress. </p><p>There’s someone in his room, walking around the bed. It’s airy and light, and still somehow louder than Eddy’s heart beating in his ears. </p><p>Slow. </p><p>He’s got to force every breath in, force every breath out.</p><p>Loud. </p><p>Eddy’s heart… </p><p>Closer. </p><p>The bed dips and something brushes at his hand. </p><p>
  <em> You’ll be alright, hey. </em>
</p><p>His heart will stop if it beats any faster. </p><p>There’s someone in Eddy’s room and he’s sitting on his bed. </p><p>He can’t scream. </p><p><em> Please, </em> he thinks, eyes closed and lips pressed together. <em> Please come back. Please help me.  </em></p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> They spend the summers together, when the heat doesn’t die out even at night and presses down their chests and burns their foreheads, and they do nothing. It’s too hot to play music, and they watch the tiny lizards shooting out of the cracks in the walls, and the dogs wandering around, whining for shade, panting until he gets them water in his cupped hands. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Eddy opens up and he plucks information out of him like he plucks at leaves on trees and blades of grass when they walk outside in the spring, and Eddy barely knows anything about him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He’s different around Eddy’s parents, and Eddy doesn’t understand how he does it. He’s charming, easy and polite, when Eddy knows him blunt and crude. He’s helpful and well-behaved, and sets the table when he’s staying for dinner, and agrees with Eddy’s father and smiles at his mother. He crashes on Eddy’s bed when they’re alone in his room and refuses to move, and borrows Eddy’s books and never brings them back, and teases him for being too prissy, and tells jokes that make Eddy blush despite himself. He pinches Eddy’s sides, and messes up his hair when he needs it nice, and one day he grabs Eddy by the chin and kisses him on the mouth. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>There’s a cockroach in the house, then two, then three. Then ten. They crawl under the door, scuttle across floorboards, tiny legs ticking, ticking, a metronome gone crazy.</p><p>Eddy can’t see but he hears them, under the bed and up the wall and on the ceiling. </p><p>They’re on the bed and at his feet and up his legs. Up his chest and down his arm. </p><p>He’s a crow and he’s picking at skin. It’s soft and warm and sweet, and tastes of blood and guilt and memories. A hand, bitten already, half eaten soon. Fingers twitching. He’s got a beak that’s sharp enough to cut through skin, tear at flesh and gnaw at bones.</p><p>There’s something moving in the wound, beady eyes, ugly wings, antennae long enough to tickle toes. In and out and under skin. One and two and three and ten.  </p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> He talks a lot more than Eddy. He’s a lot better at it, too. Where Eddy fumbles and stutters, and sounds stupid, he weasels his way out of any situation with ease. He talks at Eddy first, before he talks to him, when Eddy’s too weird to hold a proper conversation, but he doesn’t seem to mind, and Eddy doesn’t either. He tells Eddy about all the stray dogs in town, what they’re called and what they’re like, and Eddy doesn’t tell him that he’s allergic to pets. He tells Eddy about stuff his friends do and things that he’s seen in town, people’s lives that he gathered from their interactions, who’s feuding with whom, who’s cheating and who’s unhappy, tells him that he loves music and hates maths, and that he’d be into sports if he wasn’t afraid for his fingers, and Eddy doesn’t tell him that he doesn’t like exercise and doesn’t understand people like that, and that he’s being tutored in maths because that’s what good boys do. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Eddy loves him, in a weird and convoluted way, tinged with envy and admiration and something that hurts inside his chest when he watches him go.  </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>There’s a heat that doesn’t die out that summer, and Eddy’s lonely. He can’t play music and he can’t go outside. Dogs are growling and people are staring. They know, probably. </p><p>He’s tired, and troubled, but most of all he’s empty. There’s something absent, a void. He’s lonely and it’s driving him crazy. He misses …</p><p>He can’t think about it in the light, can’t close his eyes at night. Not safe. People stare and people know and people whisper. But he misses… </p><p>He misses fingers at his thighs and teeth at his throat and a mouth that takes and takes and takes. He misses Tchaikovsky, and Massenet, and Vieuxtemps, and Kreisler. </p><p>“Stop scratching at your hand, Eddy!”</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> The day before he goes, he brings Eddy to his house, and opens a bottle of wine that neither of them drink. It’s dark outside, and dark inside, and there’s not a sound until he says, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You’ll be alright, hey.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It’s a lie so Eddy says nothing, but something creeps under his skin and bites inside his chest. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You’ll be alright, hey, find yourself a nice girl and have a couple of kids, be the good son.” </em>
</p><p><em> It twitches at the corner of Eddy’s mouth and under his eyelid, and inside his mouth with words that won’t come out. </em> I love you, I love you and I’ll be yours.</p><p>
  <em> “Be the good son, like you’re so desperate to be,” he goes on, and he pours more wine in his already full glass, and doesn’t drink it. “No dishonour on your family.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It crawls under Eddy’s skin like cockroaches, and he turns his head so he won’t see. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Why are you looking away? It’s true, right? It’s what you’ll do, in the end? Be the good son, hey, always... You’re crying? Why?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He says it as if he’s surprised, but he isn’t, it’s a lie, so Eddy says nothing until it crawls outside his chest through his mouth. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I really thought you knew me better than this.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He reaches out and closes his fingers around Eddy’s chin, and wine spills on the table and he says, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I know you better than this.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And he kisses Eddy in the dark, and he takes him to his room, to forage inside his chest with his fingers and his tongue and his teeth until he finds his heart. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>At night, Eddy sometimes dreams he’s a crow. </p><p>He’s got feathers, tar-like in the dark, and a beak sharp enough to cut through skin, and when he wakes up, his fingers still feel like claws.</p><p>At night, Eddy sometimes dreams he’s a crow, and he’s picking at skin, soft and warm and sweet, with the taste of blood and something else. It comes off easy. A hand, first, bitten before, and then a face, lips and ears and eyes. A boy, sleeping but not really. Dreaming, but not really. With his eyes closed, he thinks he’s a crow. </p><p>There’s something moving under his skin, tiny legs, beady eyes, …</p><p>There’s someone else inside the room. He moves around the bed, airy and light, but loud to the boy’s ears. </p><p>The crow flies away. </p><p>There are dogs on the square, whining and panting from a heat that doesn’t die out, even at night. They catch the crow as it flies by, dizzy still from the blood and the flesh and the presence in the room, and they tear at his wings and at his claws. </p><p>He dies, skull crushed under feet, when the boy crosses the square. </p><p>When Eddy wakes up, there’s a cockroach on his bed. </p><p>And two, and three, and ten. </p><p>They dart away, and squirm under his skin through the open wound. </p><p>He screams, and so he forgets his name. </p><p>*</p><p><em> His name is Brett and he’s just one year older than Eddy. He does this thing with his mouth when he’s amused, curls it up a little, from the corner upwards, and his eye crinkles at the corner. He’s amused at Eddy a lot. The first time they talk, he tells Eddy </em> ‘you look like a puppy’, <em> and he laughs when Eddy lets out an offended groan. Then he tells Eddy that if he’s going to come and listen to him play all the time, he really should give him money. Eddy empties his pockets into the violin case when he leaves, and Brett says </em> ‘come play with me, next time”, <em> and by the time Eddy actually does it, he’s fifteen and he’s already given Brett most of his pocket money. </em></p><p>*</p><p>“Stop scratching at your hand, Eddy, you’re bleeding!”</p><p>“There’s something under my skin.” </p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> He plays the violin better than Eddy ever will, and names stray dogs before he pets them, and knows how to charm people with a smile, and kisses Eddy in the dark, and his shoulders tremble when he thinks that Eddy is asleep. </em>
</p><p><em> He touches Eddy with careful fingers, and he’s silent when he cries, and he doesn’t know that Eddy is only pretending to sleep, so he says </em>‘I’ll come back, I promise’.</p><p>
  <em> But it’s a lie, so Eddy says nothing while something creeps under his skin and bites inside his chest. </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>At night, Eddy sometimes dreams he’s a crow. </p><p>He’s got feathers like tar and a beak like a knife, and he picks at skin in the dark. It’s soft and warm and sweet, tastes of blood and sweat and tears. He starts with a hand, half-eaten already, then moves onto a face. He picks at eyes and lips and ears, and the boy’s not sleeping, not exactly. He thinks he’s dreaming, but is he really? </p><p>There’s someone else inside the room. He moves around the bed, airy and light, but loud to Eddy’s ears. The footsteps come closer and closer and Eddy’s heart beats louder and louder.</p><p>Breathe in, breathe out. He can’t move, pressed inside the bed by a weight on his chest.</p><p>It comes closer, still, close enough to touch Eddy.</p><p>The crow flies away</p><p>The bed dips.</p><p>
  <em> Tell them. </em>
</p><p>When Eddy opens his eyes, there are cockroaches in his wounds, in and out and under the skin. When he screams, only they come out.</p><p><em> Shhh </em>.</p><p>Breathing at his ear.  </p><p>
  <em> You’ll be alright, hey. </em>
</p><p>Fingers in his hair. Feathers.</p><p>
  <em> Told you I’d come back.  </em>
</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em> They meet for the first time when Eddy is thirteen. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He thinks him younger, from afar, smaller than him by a few inches. Eddy spots him from across the square. Maybe it’s the way he walks, with a bounce in his step, something of a carefree attitude, an openness that Eddy doesn’t know. He turns his head quickly – his mother’s saying something about Eddy needing new shoes, and his sister’s talking about winter coats. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> When he looks again, the boy is standing under the old Aleppo pine, petting a stray dog before he opens a violin case. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Eddy watches, then, with interest. He’s played the violin since he was six, hasn’t met someone his age at his level yet. He’s curious what the boy will play. A folk song, maybe. Something traditional. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He plays one of Sarasate’s Spanish dances, draws Eddy in like a spell. There’s something in his playing that Eddy doesn’t have, and he can’t figure out what it is. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He looks up at the sound of Eddy’s footsteps, but doesn’t stop. He smiles a little, raises his eyebrows, and points his chin towards the case at his feet. There’s a couple of coins in there, nothing else. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Eddy almost runs away, ears burning.  </em>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello again. Thanks for reading. Maybe one day I’ll post the original story in the correct order, who knows.<br/>Take care of yourselves. &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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